1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to analyzing and monitoring mobility abnormalities of human patients and more specifically, to such analysis and monitoring that is carried out for physical training or physiotherapeutic purposes.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
During the last decades, the demand for physical therapy services constantly rises. In a typical physical therapy session, a clinician (or a human expert) assesses a patient's biomechanical abilities or disabilities by reviewing relevant medical records and by direct observation of the patient. Often the clinician's remedial techniques include hands-on treatment. Such treatment may include massage, joint manipulation and postural adjustments. Often the patient's response to hands-on treatment is used to enable the clinician to further understand, and remedy the patient's condition.
Various techniques of providing physical therapy are taught to and typically used by physical therapists. These techniques are implemented through multiple of named physical therapy systems.
More recently, various systems that allow monitoring remote physiotherapy sessions have been developed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,007,459 describes a method and system for providing physical therapy to a human client having a physical condition includes the steps of providing an electronic communication link between the patient and a clinician, instructing the patient to move in a particular manner, or to assume a sustained posture or perform a test. Then, feedback is requested from the patient. The feedback relates to bodily sensation corresponding to the movement or sustained posture and can be audio, video, and/or data type feedback. The communication link communicates the feedback to the clinician. Accordingly, the clinician utilizes the feedback to assess the physical condition of the patient. The clinician also communicates remedial movements or a remedial sustained posture to the patient to address the physical condition. Various postural measurements and testing devices may be used in conjunction with the present invention to facilitate assessment and help address the physical condition in accordance with accepted physical therapy techniques.
Another exemplary system is described in International Patent Application Publication Number WO 2007/113890 which described how by means of a computer network, preferably consisting of portable computers, connected telemetrically in a known way to a central server equipped with, or connected to, a database, the provider of rehabilitative care and the patient are connected together and with other portable computers, which can send, receive and analyze data in the form of hypertext, video, and audio data; in particular, each computer enabled can connect up to the database for control of the recorded data. With an appropriate software residing in the server, there are sent automatically, in response to received hypertext, video, and audio data (obtained from the patient), other hypertext, video, and audio data constituted by guidelines for rehabilitation, indications for kinesio-physiotherapy treatments, and/or other modes of intervention. The method envisages that at the start of, during, and at the end of the therapy in question, the film of a test is made. This film is recorded, in the form of a video-audio clip, in a purposely provided user directory in the central database, to enable remote monitoring of the results of the rehabilitation therapy.